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LABOR AND WAGES IN AMERICA.

[Footnote: A paper recently read before the Society of Arts, London.]

By D. PIDGEON.

The United States of America are, collectively, of such vast extent, and,
singly, so individualized in character, that to speak of their labor
conditions as a whole would be as impossible, in an hour's address, as to
describe their physical geography or geology in a similar space of time. I
shall, therefore, confine what I have to say this evening on the subject
of labor and wages in America to a consideration of the industrial
condition of certain Eastern States, which, being essentially
manufacturing districts, offer the best instances for comparison with the
labor conditions of our own country. That this field is of adequate extent
and of typical character may be inferred from the fact that the three
States composing it, viz.. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut,
contain together nearly one-half of the whole manufacturing population of
America, while Connecticut and Massachusetts are the very cradle of
American manufacture, and the home of the typical Yankee artisan. In
addition, the State of Massachusetts is distinguished by possessing a
Bureau of Statistics of Labor, whose sole business is to ventilate
industrial questions, and to collect such facts as will afford the
statesman a sound basis for industrial legislation. We shall find
ourselves, in the sequel, indebted for spine of our chief conclusions to
this excellent public institution.

If we ask ourselves, at the outset of the inquiry, "Who and what are the
operatives of manufacturing America?" the answer involves a distinction
which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, or too carefully kept in mind.
These people consist, first, of native-born, and, secondly, of alien
workers. The United States census, reckoning every child born in the
country as an American, even if both his parents be foreigners, I would
make it appear that only six and a half millions out of its fifty millions
are of alien birth, but, for our purpose, these figures are misleading.
There is a vast difference, in many important respects, between
"Americans" derived from a stock long settled in the States and
"Americans" with two or even with one alien parent. In the former case,
the hereditary sense of social equality, the teaching of the common
school, and the influence of democratic institutions, produce a certain
type of character which I disting